Saturday Sermon
- The Weekend Blah on the .XXX top-level domain
It was in an issue of Mad magazine that I first read about the idea of legalising marijuana. It was revolutionary, even anti-establishment and rebellious, but logical. The moment you legalise drugs, they are no longer "forbidden fruit". For all you know, it might even lose its allure. Prostitution is something like that. If you legalise it, the market will take care of rules, regulations, laws will forbid unprotected sex, and even incidence of HIV may come down. In an illegal market, anything goes, and that is dangerous since the authorities adopt an ostrich-like sand-in-the-head attitude.
Just like prohibition achieves nothing -- in fact, it has a negative impact on society and the state -- talking of banning pornography is all bullshit. The notion is foolhardy, and implementation impossible. Which is why, I was a bit saddened by ICANN's decision not to create an .XXX domain for pornographic sites. It was the best opportunity for the world to cut down on paedophilia on the Web. And since politics makes for strange bedfellows, it was the US, Australia and Iran which negated the move.
A .xxx top-level domain would have meant better and tighter parental control, making kids safer, if not totally immune, from Web pornography. Tracking becomes easier in case of any legal trespass, and the market would corrected itself by becoming more disciplined. Alas, we have lost that chance. At least for the time being.
A .xxx extension also gives corporates a better chance to monitor employee usage of bandwidth, and therefore, at least theoretically, increase productivity. Nobody admits, but some time or the other, we have all accessed porn in the office.
Somehow, though, I get the feeling that corporates and parents (and horror of horrors, the media), are indifferent towards Net porn. For them, it is always something that happens to someone else's organisation or the neighbour's kids. Truth is, the danger is closer than we all think. And the sooner we realise it the better.
- The Weekend Blah on the .XXX top-level domain
It was in an issue of Mad magazine that I first read about the idea of legalising marijuana. It was revolutionary, even anti-establishment and rebellious, but logical. The moment you legalise drugs, they are no longer "forbidden fruit". For all you know, it might even lose its allure. Prostitution is something like that. If you legalise it, the market will take care of rules, regulations, laws will forbid unprotected sex, and even incidence of HIV may come down. In an illegal market, anything goes, and that is dangerous since the authorities adopt an ostrich-like sand-in-the-head attitude.
Just like prohibition achieves nothing -- in fact, it has a negative impact on society and the state -- talking of banning pornography is all bullshit. The notion is foolhardy, and implementation impossible. Which is why, I was a bit saddened by ICANN's decision not to create an .XXX domain for pornographic sites. It was the best opportunity for the world to cut down on paedophilia on the Web. And since politics makes for strange bedfellows, it was the US, Australia and Iran which negated the move.
A .xxx top-level domain would have meant better and tighter parental control, making kids safer, if not totally immune, from Web pornography. Tracking becomes easier in case of any legal trespass, and the market would corrected itself by becoming more disciplined. Alas, we have lost that chance. At least for the time being.
A .xxx extension also gives corporates a better chance to monitor employee usage of bandwidth, and therefore, at least theoretically, increase productivity. Nobody admits, but some time or the other, we have all accessed porn in the office.
Somehow, though, I get the feeling that corporates and parents (and horror of horrors, the media), are indifferent towards Net porn. For them, it is always something that happens to someone else's organisation or the neighbour's kids. Truth is, the danger is closer than we all think. And the sooner we realise it the better.
posted by Sachin Kalbag at 9:15 am
5 Comments:
Hear, hear. Also note there is a DSP in Mumbai who has taken upon himself the task of going around the city tearing down/blackening 'obscene' posters, deploying a sizeable number of cops who'd be better off doing something else.
"Nobody admits, but some time or the other, we have all accessed porn in the office."
Please speak for yourself, Mr Kalbag..
"Nobody admits, but some time or the other, we have all accessed porn in the office."
That is not true. Only the foolhardy or the helplessly horny have done so. Who else would disregard the fact that every net access is probably monitored by the office IT guys?
XXX domain won't matter as most porn sites would continue to use .com
- Vishal Tayal
www.vishaltayal.com
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